no deal

For as long as I know, the California Faculty Association has bought time from the CSU administration, and used that time to allow faculty to do work for the union. Not any more.

After weeks of delays, we finally got word at Cow State Santa Claus that the chancellor is hereby forbidding campus administrations from allowing this arrangement any more. This is due to one of three possible motives: (1) the administration does not know how much stress and undue pressure CFA activists endure as faculty and union reps, or (2) the administration does not care, or (3) it is the express intent of the administration to stop CFA from being able to defend the contract, or (4) they hope to cause faculty activists grievous harm. I am inclined to believe 3 and 4.

I plan to change my class assignments to reflect the undue pressure that five courses, let alone additional unpaid work on campus for the university, let alone union work. I'm going to give my students less of my time, energy, and effort.

I'm also going to have to give less of my time and energy to faculty rights work, but I'm going to try not to reduce my effort. I haven't even begun to work out details of that.

happy happy

Now that the official deadline has passed for the state to hold a special election to keep some taxes in place, and the state senate has started holding hearings on a cuts-only deficit reduction that would lead to massive layoffs of faculty and staff and huge increases in tuition for students, I'm headed to the CFA Assembly this weekend. Good timing.

I decided last night that I would practice Strategic Happy-Making™. This is a series of actions one takes in order to attempt to impose a cheerier mood. Counter-insurgency against doom, you might say. Attitude regime change. Whistling in the dark.

In any event, since the Assembly is in San Francisco, John Phillips' "San Francisco" was going through my mind. And although I may not wear some flowers in my hair (though I've been known to), I will definitely be wearing flowers on my shirt. I'm going to be decked out in bright yellow, green, and blue for the Assembly, the Faculty Rights workshop, and the Lecturer Council meeting. Perhaps someone will ask.

I should consider wearing flowers in my hair very seriously for the election, because I'm running again to be on the Contract Development and Bargaining Strategies Committee, and I figure the flowers would encourage people to vote for me.

Sometimes this kind of dopey effort works for me. Some fair percentage of being happy is convincing yourself to be happy.

text of a speech I didn't give at the CFA Assembly

The 72nd CFA Assembly was held in Los Angeles this weekend, so yes, it was our second trip down to LA in 9 days. We just drove back up through Kern County dust and windstorms (which badly scratched the passenger side door of Eddie Jetta by nearly impaling us with a tumbleweed), and hard rain through Madera, Merced, and Stanislaus counties. It was harrowing, and now I've got to try to calm myself, and get some work done for my long class day tomorrow.

Luckily, last night I hardly slept. I was up half the night thinking about what a hellish academic year this has been for us and for our families and students. In particular it's been hell on lecturers.

I spoke last night to a lecturer activist whose campus is contemplating cutting 80% of the remaining lecturers for next academic year. It brought back so much of the strife we've dealt with at Santa Claus the last couple years, and my own personal worries about the end of my job here, and of the end of my academic career - a real possibility still, but more remote for me.

It got me thinking about the relative risks, rewards, and stress levels of faculty activists who are on the tenure track versus those of us on the tenuous track. This isn't to say the tenure-line faculty have been anything less than superb in their support -- for the most part. But they haven't so immediately faced loss of employment, loss of their colleagues, and the guilt and unfair blame we feel.

At the Assembly we discussed the CSU Chancellor's latest scheme to invent a problem and impose a draconian solution that helps to blame faculty - this "deliverology" nonsense they've bought from Michael Barber. CFA brought in a Barber critic named John Seddon to speak about how deliverology has worked in the UK (a key example: their public health service is now much worse and the cost management controls imposed by deliverology have resulted in increased costs).

So, there lie in bed, thinking that after all we've done to try to help preserve as many jobs of our fellow lecturers as we can, along comes a new plan that will necessarily result (is planned to result) in even greater loss of faculty work. And I got up and wrote a few words to say at the Assembly. I wouldn't have read it, but I would have used it to speak from - so I'd be more loose and spontaneous, which I like. Anyway, since I didn't say it, here's the text I wrote:

Good morning fellow faculty activists. I wanted to say something this morning about what has been, for me at least, the elephant in the room this whole weekend. Could I have all the lecturer activists please stand for a moment?

[Presumably, they'd stand. They're about 33% of the Assembly.]

I've spoken to many of my fellow lecturer activists at the Assembly this weekend, and not a single one expressed any confidence at all of returning to work, and to our struggle, next academic year. This is important to me because all of the troubles and stress we've dealt with has been compounded for lecturers who know their jobs are even more precarious now than a year ago, despite our fighting back. I hope to see all of you next fall. Thanks, you can sit down again now if you like.

We know why our situation is as precarious as ever next year: deliverology. I don't know about anyone else here, but I think the original version of this story by Franz Kafka is much better written. It also has a happier ending.

Because all of us are exhausted, and all of us can't afford to stop fighting, and all of us are facing the potential futility of our fight, I wanted, finally, to offer something I've been telling myself all year, for what it's worth. No matter the outcome for ourselves and for our colleagues, we haven't failed. We haven't failed ourselves, we haven't failed our colleagues or students, and we haven't failed our universities. And no matter the outcome, we should have hope. I don't have hope because I think the outcome will be good - I don't, in fact. I have hope because we're here now, and because we have fought, in solidarity and in love, and no matter what happens, we still won that solidarity and that love.